Re: Lying applicants

[Lisa Higgins <lisarea -at- LUCENT -dot- COM>]

So then, Andrew Plato is all like:

> So, I am curious to hear your thoughts.  Liars and cheats? How do we ferret
> them out?  And when you do catch them, what do you do with them?  Fire 'em,
> whack them with a 2x4, let the ice weasels nibble their eyeballs out?

Well, I think I speak for us all when I say that it is Andrew's
charming innocence and trusting naivete that are at once his most
endearing qualities and his greatest faults.

I agree with the others who've said that it's your responsibility to
determine just what experience and knowledge mean. Tech writing is
such a weird and amorphous field that it's hard to tell what
companies really mean when they ask for someone with 'experience
with' something. Many people who hire tech writers don't understand
how someone can document, for example, a telephone switching system
without an extensive background in telecommunications.

Yours is an extreme example, though, and I agree that, if your
account is accurate, this woman was lying. This should have been
fairly trivial to discover, though, by asking a few simple questions
or having her describe her experience.

So, please, Andrew, for your own sake, try to cultivate a little
cynicism. This is a cold, hard world. Your guilelessness is a beauty
to behold, and we all love you dearly for it, but people like you are
chewed up and spit out every day.

> Respond off list.  I'll post a blatantly one-sided summary in a few years.
> :-)

"Andrew... is .... a real smart...guy" Gene Shalit
"I found Andrew's ... observations ... insightful.. Mr. Plato is ...
wise... " Rex Reed

Lisa.
lisarea -at- lucent -dot- com


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